Clinicals

Students planning on completing the program in 3 years at my school must do 4 units of "clinical" work. Each unit require 72 hours of work, and 10 pages of work product. Only 2 units can be done at any one place. I had been planning on doing 2 of my units at the small claims court advisory that the school runs, but we just found out that the county slashed the budget, so the school won't be doing it anymore. The school does run a family law mediation, but it sounds like the hours are not reliable, and can be hard to get in the total you need.

The school highly recommends working with a judge if you can, or trying out several different law offices, or working in the public defender's or district attorney's offices. They also recommended using some strategy.....if you ultimately want to work in a certain place, do NOT start there with your first clinical. You're better off starting out where you do NOT want to be, in case you make mistakes, look dumb, etc. (Seriously, this is what they said!) It makes sense to me, though I hadn't thought of it that way before.

I have a good family friend that is a judge in superior court, so I need to call him and find out if there is any chance of me working with him this summer. I'm only going to have class 2 afternoons a week, so I could probably work up to 2 full days if I needed to. If that doesn't work out, I may talk to my personal attorney and see if there is anything in her office I could do. She happens to be an adjunct professor, so that is an added bonus. Her firm is looking for a law clerk, though they want someone in their final year though, so I'm not sure they would want me.

I'm thinking I'm probably going to want to take the 3 day Family Law Mediation 1 unit class that is a prerequisite to doing that clinical, just in case I decide to do that one. All of this makes me realize that even though I will have about 2 months off from regular classes, I really won't have much "vacation" time. If I can, I'd love to start a clinical in May right after finals, so I can start squeezing in all those hours. I hope it is not too hard to find one that will work out!